Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Sirimiri y Miss Sellers

Today´s word of the day is "euri": rain

Bilbao gets a lot of rain, especially in the winter, which is why it is so green here. Well, had I not known this I would have used my Nancy Drew skills by noting this little machines at the entrances of many buildings, including my bank. These contraptions allow you to slip a plastic sleeve on your umbrella so you don´t go getting everyone´s knees wet. In addtion to the sleeves, you get to put everything though a metal detector, through which an umbrella look like the fossil of a prehistoric bird-dinossaur. Another sign of all the rain is that most of the baby strollers also have a clear plastic cover that pulls down to protect little Fulanita or Fulanito.

I hear it is torrential in KC today. I spent some quality time yesterday standing under a number of awnining as it just came down. I had an umbrella, but I liked just watching and waiting and avoiding the possibilty of my eye being poked by another umbrella coming at me down the narrow streets. It was actually very fun because standing right next to me would be three other people plus a stroller with backs to the wall of a men´s clothing store. awnings. If I lived here I bet I would have an alternate route to work that would allow me to go under the widest. On my way back to my dorm, after the rain, I saw my first rainbow in about a year. I just stopped and watched it, I wanted to point it out to people because no one seemed to care, but maybe they are common here. I don´t know though, I don´t think they would ever stop noticing them.

Speaking of rainbows . . . the color maroon is quite popular for hair here. Closely followed by electric pumpkin, and finally various shades of purple. These are not the usual suspects, not punks or people who ran out of dye. They are usually fully put together people who made a choice to do that to do that. And the thing is, with the exception of the traffic cone orange, it doesn´t look all that bad. But, I still imagine these women looking in ther mirror and having the thought "ah, yes, I think I want to look like I am out of an cartoon."

my above-ground swimming pool was flipped by the wind - and my mom and i had to run out into the storm to put bricks on it so it wouldn't fly any further. it only had a few inches of water in it, which is why it flipped. if it had been full, there would have been no problem. but today, we now have to upright it. it was quite the storm.